Sir Alan Walter Rudge CBE, FREng,[1] FRS (born 17 October 1937 London) is a British electrical engineer. He was Chairman of the ERA Foundation from its formation until December 2012, after which he was appointed as the Foundation's President.[2] In 2012 he also stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Management of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, a position he had held for eleven years; he had succeeded Sir Denis Rooke and was himself succeeded by Bernard Taylor.[3]

Life

He earned a BSc from the London Polytechnic in 1964 and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Birmingham in 1968. He was head of operations at British Telecommunications.[4] He was Chairman of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He is a past President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and was Chairman of the Engineering Council. He was appointed a Fellow[1] of the Royal Academy of Engineering[1] in 1984.

He was until July 2014 Deputy Chairman and Senior Independent Director on the board of Experian plc.[5]

In 1994 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Multimedia and the Information Superhighway".[6]

In 1995, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.[7]

In the New Year Honours list for 2000 he was appointed Knight Bachelor for services to Engineering Research and to Industry.[8]

Climate change

He is a member of the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate change denial think tank chaired by Nigel Lawson.[9]

In 2010 he organized a petition of 43 denialists (about 3% of the membership) challenging the Royal Society's "unnecessarily alarmist position" on climate change. He told The Times that "there is a lot of science to be done before we can be certain about climate change and before we impose upon ourselves the huge economic burden of cutting emissions."[10] The revised guidance was published in September 2010[11] and its lead conclusion was "There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century".[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c "List of Fellows". Raeng.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-06-08. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  2. ^ "Sir Alan Rudge CBE FREng FRS – President ERA Foundation". Archived from the original on 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2014-09-17.
  3. ^ "Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Annual Report 2012" (PDF). Royalcommission1851.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 October 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  4. ^ "Alan Rudge - Engineering and Technology History Wiki". Ieeeghn.org. 13 January 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  5. ^ "Experian plc - Directorate changes". Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  6. ^ "Hugh Miller Macmillan". Macmillan Memorial Lectures. Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  7. ^ "Honorary Graduates 1989 to present". bath.ac.uk. University of Bath. Archived from the original on 19 December 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2012.
  8. ^ "BBC News: New Year Honours 2000". News.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  9. ^ Nuccitelli, Dana (2016-08-01). "A climate scientist and economist made big bucks betting on global warming". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  10. ^ "Rebel scientists force Royal Society to accept climate change scepticism". The Times. 2010-05-29. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  11. ^ "Climate change: A Summary of the Science". ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ^ "Climate change:a summary of the science" (PDF). royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2020-01-21.

External links

Fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1992
Authority control databases
Categories